During the urgent court hearings of the Indian government’s Telegram block, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta cited the Ministry of Home Affairs’ (MHA’s) report on Telegram in the Delhi HC and reasoned why Telegram’s “unique platform architecture” is enabling the illegal activity on its platform and therefore leading to the government’s emergency blocking order ahead of NEET re-examination. 

Reuters reportedly got its hands on MHA’s non-public 35-page report and here’s what it revealed:

According to the MHA report on Telegram, it is used ‘extensively’ for:

• sharing child sexual abuse material (CSAM),
• financial scams,
• fake job advertisements,
• online piracy and
• online harassment 

Over 6.8 lakh cyber complaints and Rs. 71,017.5 crore loss: The MHA report apparently had the screenshots of some group with fake ads, CSAM, and a pirated version of Dhurandhar too. The report also said that the government has received more than 688,000 complaints related to cyber fraud on Telegram since 2023, ⁠causing an ​estimated loss of some $750 million (Rs. 71,017.5 crore) to Indians.

Therefore, the government reportedly said that it was “proactively monitoring” such groups on Telegram. 

Read Reuter’s report here: [ Original | Archived ] 

On the first day of hearing, before orally reading a few excerpts of the report on the second day, Tushar Mehta said that he would reveal the “factual foundations” behind Telegram’s emergency blocking order and added that the findings would be “shocking.”

Here is everything Mehta said during the court hearing that MediaNama attended, where he revealed select information from the report:

• Title of the report: Report on Abuse of Telegram for Cybercrime (2026)
• Date: June 10, 2026. 
• Who prepared it: MHA’s  Indian Cyber Crimes Coordination Center (I4C)

“The said report documents… the extensive and recurring misuse of Telegram for a wide spectrum of unlawful activities, including cyber attacks, purchase and sale of mules and rented bank accounts, operational and transactional cybercrime syndicates, malware distribution, data exfiltration, command and control infrastructure, circulation of violent and extremist content, dissemination of pirated content,” said Solicitor General Tushar Mehta.

Key points raised by Mehta from the MHA’s report on Telegram: 

Telegram’s technical architecture makes it difficult for law enforcement: “The Telegram possesses certain technical and architectural features that distinguish it from other intermediaries and materially affect the ability of law enforcement agencies to prevent, detect, and investigate unlawful activities on the platform. Such features, when viewed cumulatively, create significant challenges in enforcement and facilitate rapid dissemination and persistence of unlawful content despite takedown measures.” 

• Anonymity and disappearing messages, large files, and virality: “Additionally, the platform permits the use of usernames in place of phone numbers, allows concealment of user identifiers, supports self-destructing messages, facilitates large-volume file sharing, and provides forwarding mechanisms that enable rapid viral redistribution of content. The cumulative effect of these features creates an ecosystem that is uniquely susceptible to misuse of the dissemination of examination leak material, cyber-enabled fraud, extremist content, pirated data, etc.”
• Telegram users don’t have URLs like other socal media platforms: “The Telegram permits users to conceal critical identifiers. We do not have this problem with other intermediaries such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, etc. They have their names, and in any case, they have URLs because they are operating through the internet. This platform operates through the cloud. So even if they block it and somebody does some mischief, the law enforcement agency cannot reach the genuine user, the actual user.”
• Public groups with more than 2,000 groups with broadcasting features: “The Telegram is materially distinguishable from other social media and messaging applications or intermediaries, owing to its unique technical architecture and operational features. Unlike conventional platforms, Telegram is completely cloud-based, permitting seamless synchronisation across multiple devices and enabling storage and retrieval of large volumes of content beyond a single endpoint device. The platform provides groups of up to 2,000 members and public channels capable of broadcasting content to virtually unlimited audiences, thereby significantly amplifying the reach of any unlawful content.”
• Not preserving user data after the user deletes the account impedes investigation: “Telegram’s privacy policy expressly provides that deletion of an account results in removal of messages, media, contacts, and other data stored in Telegram’s cloud infrastructure… [The privacy policy] states that deletion of an account removes all messages, media contacts, and every other piece of data stored in the Telegram cloud. Consequently, evidentiary material relevant to an investigation may be irretrievably lost upon account deletion. This is in contravention of rules… The rest of the intermediaries comply with this.”

“That’s why their architectural problem is the real problem. But otherwise, why have we not touched any other intermediary? They are more influential and more powerful, in terms of membership or subscriber base, etc. Because first, they have their internal filtration mechanism, and their architecture is different,” he further argued.

Telegram encourages bot activity, and it can be misused for illegal activity: “The Telegram itself has acknowledged misuse of such bot infrastructure in relation to unlawful activities. It is pertinent to note that Telegram reportedly disabled more than 150 bots associated with the dissemination of [NEET-related] content under 900-plus takedown requests related to the NEET exam paper leakage matter. Such disclosure demonstrates that the bot ecosystem is capable of being exploited for the dissemination of examination-related material and other unlawful content on a large scale. This is available only in Telegram.”

• What Telegram bots do, in Mehta’s words, based on the MHA report: “Telegram provides a dedicated bot infrastructure, enabling the creation and deployment of automated accounts capable of functioning without continuous human intervention. These bots can automatically disseminate content, redirect users to channels, send bulk communications, collect information, and perform other actions at scale. The said feature is unique in its scope and functionality and permits the creation of sophisticated automated networks capable of operating with minimal human oversight.”
• Unlike WhatsApp, on Telegram, one user can create over 40 bots: “In Telegram, one account user can create 40 bots. Bots are machines. They are robots. They are not humans who are working. While in the case of, say, WhatsApp, it is one bot per one user. That is why they say that you have multiplicity-encouraging architecture, and bots can thereafter further multiply.” 
• Blocking bots isn’t working because of multiplying mirror bots: “The removal and/or disabling of a particular bot does not necessarily eliminate the… underlying unlawful activity… Mirror bots having identical functionality, content and objectives can be recreated within minutes under different names or identifiers. Consequently, enforcement measures directed against individual bots frequently have only temporary effects, thereby allowing the unlawful activity to re-emerge and continue operating in substantially the same manner.”

Additionally, he also referred to the alleged terrorist activity on the platform and also clarified that the alleged terrorist activity is not directly related to then active Telegram ban. 

“That the Telegram’s own disclosure further indicates that approximately 16,000 terrorist communities were banned during the first… I’m not going into it, but there is in this report; they said this is the most preferred platform for terrorist activities, but right now, we are not concerned with that, my lord.”

Access MediaNama’s coverage of the Telegram block here. 

Also Read: 

• Telegram restored in India after brief delay; remains delisted on Apple App Store 
• Explained: How Indian users are bypassing the government’s Telegram block
• Delhi HC upholds temporary Telegram block over NEET-UG re-exam